Letters of Franklin K. Lane eBook

When the spirits Good and Bad will permit me to visit
Ipswich I cannot say. Are Doctors of the carnal
or the spiritual? They hold me. So soon
as I was given a few ducats these banditti rose to
rob me. Polite, they are, these modern sons of
Dick Turpin, and clever indeed, for they contrive
that you shall be helpless, that you may not in good
form resist their calculated, schemed, coordinated
blood-drawing. And I had as lief have a Sioux
Medicine man dance a one-step round my camp fire,
and chant his silly incantation for my curing, as
any of these blood pressure, electro-chemical, pill,
powder specialists. Give me an Ipswich witch instead.
Let her lay hands on me. Soft hands that turn
away wrath. Have you such or did your ancestors,
out of fear of their wives, burn them all?

Well, this is no way for a sober, sick, sedate citizen
to be talking to a Man of the Cloth, even tho’
he be on vacation. Have you read any of Leonard
Merrick’s novels? ConradinQuestofhisyouth, for instance? If
not, do so now. They are what you literati would
designate as G. S.—­great stuff.

Give me another cheering line, do! For I live
in a world that is not altogether lovely.

F. K. L.

TO JAMES M. COX DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT

New York City, July 25, 1920

MydearGovernor,—­I shall
presume upon your flattering invitation to speak frankly,
not in the hope that I may in any way enlighten a
man of such experience and success, but that I may
possibly accentuate some point that you may recognize
as important, which in the rush of things, might be
overlooked. If I should appear in the least didactic,
I beg that you charge it to my desire for definiteness,
and my inability to give the atmosphere of a personal
conversation.

A WORD AS TO GENEROSITY

The unforgivable sin in our politics is a lack of
generosity. Smallness, meanness, extreme partisanship,
littleness of any kind —­these are not in
accord with the American conception of an American
leader. A clever thing may gratify a man’s
own immediate partisan following, but the impression
on the country at large is not good. We want
a full, adequate appreciation of the fact that
there is hardly more than a film that divides Republican
from Democrat; indeed, in that fact lies our hope
of success. We must win firstvoters
and Independents.

Let me be concrete;—­The war was won by
Republicans as well as Democrats. ... Therefore,
I would say, give generously of appreciation to the
Republicans, who raised Liberty Loans, who administered
food affairs, who put their plants at the Nation’s
service, who directed the various activities, such
as aeroplane making, and transporting and financing
during the war. ...

A day has come when partisanship with its personalities
and bitterness does not satisfy the public. We
have seen things on too large a scale now to believe
in the importance of trifles, or in the adequacy of
trifling men. We must have men who are large
enough to be international and national at the same
time, to be politicians and yet American statesmen,
to subordinate always the individual ambition and
the party advantage to the national good.